WROL

In an English-speaking forum in another country I came across a thread on how to deal with a "Without Rule of Law" situation. It quickly turned into a typical post-apocalyptic guns and ammo thread, but I was interested in the "WROL" thing.

Most of the survival subforums on the gun boards I frequent deal mostly with Zombie Apocalypse and black helicopter scenarios. WROL would seem to be more likely.

My contribution to the thread:

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Assuming "without rule of law" means "collapse of the government", the problem likely won't be lack of law, but rather way more law than you want, as different factions and groups jockey for power.

A common scenario is for a government to fracture into two or more competing pieces or revolutionary governments. Sometimes the army or police go their own way, as do some provinces and cities. It's also a time when cultural, racial, religious, or language groups become more of an issue.

It's not unusual to have half a dozen different police, armies, and governments proclaiming themselves the One True Authority and promising retribution to anyone who doesn't agree. And they're likely to all have way more men and guns than you can do anything about.

When such "authorities" are trying to consolidate their power, "disarming the populace" is usually a high priority, to prevent other groups from inciting the populace to resistance. Police and militia units are usually consolidated near government buildings and possibly electric or water works; this leaves a local power vacuum.

In theory a local power vacuum shouldn't matter much. In practice, it may attract gangs, organized criminals, or organized crazies.

For medium-term survival in such a situation, you need to be able to provide your own solution to the power vacuum.